This Is Not A
BLOG!
Date: 29/08/14
Doon Tae The Wire - Part I: The Yes/No Interludes
These are the posts that I have been sedulously, nay enthusiastically, failing to write for weeks.
(Yes, 'posts'; this started off as just one piece, but some sneaking regard for the well-being of my Reader led me to realise that it would have to be broken up a bit. So this here is the first part of three).
It's not as if I have nothing to say on the topic at hand; quite the reverse, as you will see here.
The fact of it is that what I have been meaning to not write leaps about like a footballer who's found his jockstrap impregnated with Algipan (US readers should substitute the term Ben-Gay here to enjoy the full Dollar value of the simile); coherent it probably ain't.
And yet, with less than three weeks to go until the people of Scotland make the most fateful decision they are ever likely to have to make, and with my own bias clearly on view, I feel that I now have to make the effort to codify where I feel things are at this point. The danger is, of course, that like my famous prediction of the 2010 Westminster vote, I will end up looking a complete 'nana in short order; but that is the risk you always take when shooting your metaphorical gob off in public, so I am both resigned to and willing to embrace that possibility; it goes with the domain, you know.
So, what are my feelings as we near the finishing post? Well, I remain cautiously pessimistic; that is to say, I still expect a win for 'No' (albeit by a very narrow margin of about three to four percentage points), but I am hopeful of being proved wrong. There does seem to be an energy about the 'Yes' campaign which their opponents appear unable to match. There is also a stronger grass-roots element on the pro-independence side which the Unionists seem unable even to comprehend, let alone counter.
They may have felt that they had no need either of enthusiasm or 'boots on the ground', given the massive preponderence of pro-Union media. Not just the newspapers, all bar one of which have either come out for 'No' or claimed a 'neutrality' which is belied by what they actually print (and don't print) and by whom, but (to their eternal and inexpungeable discredit) the supposedly 'neutral' broadcasting organisations, BBC and STV, which have - to varying degrees and with varying proportions of shamelessness - so slanted their coverage (either in terms of volume or presentational nuance) towards the Unionists that even some 'No' supporters have found themselves tutting in disquiet at the sight of what they thought was an august and comforting British institution exposing itself for what it always has been, but had been able to conceal beneath an antimacassar of self-righteous guff for far too long; namely, that it is The State Broadcaster. I shall return to the implications of the BBC's conduct later, as it ties in with the party-political consequences which I'll also come to in due course.
I have to say that I am quite baffled by the various opinion polls which have been taken over the last few months, and by the way that they have been trumpeted by both sides, but especially by the pro-independence observers and bloggers (James Kelly is the go-to guy on this, in my experience). I find it hard to understand why pro-Yes people flush all triumphant at the news that, although a new poll may indicate the 'No' lead narrowing, it still leaves the Naw-sayers about twelve points or so ahead. At this stage in the campaign, one would expect 'Yes' - if it had any hopes of winning on September 18 - to be at least level-pegging, if not slightly ahead. A swing of six per cent (to use the plucked-out-of-the-air figure I used above) is by no means impossible (or even improbable) even this late in the day, but I can't draw any comfort from that; it seems far too big a gap to close in the time remaining. There's also the difference between the scores when declared 'undecideds' are excluded from the percentages, which seem to be pointing towards a very narrow margin either way, but which again leaves out the question of which way - if any - the 'dinnae ken' faction will jump.
The polls could, of course, be wrong. But all of them? That would be - and the cliché is most apposite here, I feel - beyond the bounds of probability (I did statistics for two years in secondary school; I've forgotten everything about 'standard deviation' - preferring non-standard ones to get my kicks nowadays - but still remember how groovy 'probability trees' looked). And yet, most of these polling companies have form when it comes to getting it delightfully wrong with regard to voting in Scotland. Virtually every one of them was still putting Labour in to win the 2011 election to the Scottish Parliament, only to see the SNP romp home with a majority that the Labour/LibDem-devised voting system was intended specifically to prevent them ever getting. There are also issues of methodology and 'weighting' which I don't pretend to comprehend (see above) which may skew the poll results in a certain direction (see Paul Kelly again for more on these points).
There's also a question over the sampling methods, and here's where 'Yes' supporters may have cause for some optimism. As I understand it, polling companies have been reluctant to include in their samples people who did not vote in either the last Holyrood or Westminster elections. If that is the case, then that would exclude one particular 'demographic' (I apologise for using such a reductive term here, but it's only for brevity); namely, those who haven't bothered to vote because there has been nothing they felt was worth voting for. These are mainly in the lowest socio-economic bracket, to whom the massed ranks of Westminster's Neo-Liberal Party (one arse, three cheeks; four if you count the Faragistes, in which case said rear would then resemble a hot cross bun) have had little to say beyond, "Shut up and go away!", "You are but as the dust beneath the wheels of our limousines!", or "EX-TERM-IN-ATE!!!". One of the canny things about the activities of some elements on the pro-independence side - most notably the Radical Independence Campaign - has been the way that they have deliberately targeted those very areas for mass canvassing. In this, they seem to have had some considerable success, in that substantial numbers of those canvassed have - for the first time in years, or even for the first time ever - actually registered to vote, having seen something which, for once, offers them something more than that old standby of the austerity-age cookery book, Thirty Ways With Mince. Remember, these are people who have been almost entirely excluded from the polling companies' considerations and, given their number, may end up making a big difference on the day.
Even given that, I would strongly urge pro-'Yes' activists not to put too great a faith in all of this; every vote will have to be fought for, face to face, until the last tick of September 17.
Other parts of the 'Yes' campaign have been holding public meetings up and down Scotland in order to spread the word. And these have been public meetings, rather than the invitiation-to-party-trusties-only occasions which the Unionist camp tends to prefer (and they still seem to preferring the 'shit and run' strategy, whereby they agree to send someone along to a public debate only to pull out at the last minute in an attempt to prevent the public from hearing their opponents). But such public meetings tend strongly to attract only the already semi- or fully-committed, and are therefore not likely to be an accurate guide to the public's mood.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the independence-supporting side has been the degree of public participation involved. Not only has the campaign been a genuinely bottom-up one - by severe and striking contrast with the other side, whose idea of a 'grass-roots' campaign is one paid for by Tory millionaires and run from a 'branding agency' in central London - but it has drawn together a wide variety of political, social and civic groupings. And many of the activities of these have been funded from the bottom up as well; scarcely a day has gone by without yet another crowdfunded event, many of which have reached their targets in double-quick time.
One of the most noteworthy undertakings has hit the streets in the last few days. Recognising that the main obstacle to getting their message across to the public at large was the overwhelming bias of the official media, Stuart Campbell of the splendidly splenetic (but meticulously-researched) Wings Over Scotland put together The Wee Blue Book, which sets out the argument for independence in clear and concise terms, and attempts to counter the air attack from the embedded media with a concerted ground campaign. With funding from individuals all over Scotland (and beyond), WOS is now distributing some 250 000 copies to every corner of Caledonia. If the posts I've seen on Twitter are any guide, then this book could be the real game-changer; because if one thing is clear about the self-identified 'undecideds' - and even about what might be termed the 'soft-No's' - it is that many of them are where they are due to a lack of such clear statements and information. Whether it will be enough will remain to be seen, but the mere fact that such a thing is even being attempted is an inspiring one, reminding me - if no-one else - of the sort of active involvement by ordinary citizens which led to the downfall of the sclerotic, decaying and terminally-decadent Eastern European states a quarter of a century ago.
Speaking of crumbling empires brings me naturally to the Labour Party in Scotland. Even I, well used to the nasty little ways of the Labour Party in my own dear colony, with its fakery, ideological decrepitude and outright arrogance, profess myself slightly baffled as to - to use a tecnhical term which I hope won't need too much explication - what the holy fuck the Labour Party in Scotland thinks it is doing. This is the Party which is - so it still insists - the natural home for the poor, downtrodden working folk. And yet, there it stands, knock-kneed in determination, collective chin sticking out like a crumb tray (© Ivor Cutler), in alliance with not only the Tories, but with such pinnacles of reason as...the BNP (or what's left of it), UKIP (which has everyone else left of it), the Orange Order (that peculiar tribe who daub themselves in orange and trundle down streets en masse like a load of be-sashed Daleks, screaming "PRE-DES-TIN-ATE! PRE-DES-TIN-ATE!!!"), at least one notorious Holocaust-denier...and George Galloway (a man worth only quoting James Maxton at, in that you keep wanting to shout, "Sit down, man, you're a bloody tragedy!"). Yes, the People's Party are openly and unabashedly siding with the forces of reaction in order to keep the poor, the disabled, the unemployed and the under-supported of Scotland in the firing line of decades more neo-liberal dismantling of even the most basic amenities of a modern civilised society. But, je me demand encore, why?
Well, one reason is certainly a visceral hatred of the SNP, which has led even senior figures in the Party to make the most ludicrous and unclean attacks on Alex Salmond. This is a pathology which runs deep with the Labour Party in Scotland; the word 'pathology' is not, I think, too strong here, for what sort of distemper leads those who claim to care for the disadvantaged to cheer and dance at the prospect of those same disadvantaged being shat on for evermore by the politics of Permanent Austerity in the cause of those who are allowed to dodge their own responsibility for where we find ourselves? Just so that they can 'dish the Nats'? How dismaying, how pathetic, how infantile a response!
Another reason, equally venal, is the desire on the behalf of Labour MPs and appointee-Lairds alike to keep their access to the troughs at the Westminster Palace Of Varieties, Bar, Brothel And Skittle Alley (by appointment to BAE). Such an urge towards self-preservation is, at least, rational within its own terms. But again, how insulting it must look to those on the sharp end of policies enacted with enthusiasm by the occupants of that notorious grande maison de passe, particularly when they consider how utterly shameless those habitués are in advocating in their own interest.
A further reason can be found in the misapplication of what used to be a principle of The Left™, namely the appeal to 'solidarity'. This innocent word - having for years lain utterly inert in that morgue of 'unfashionable' ideas which was built as a mausoleum to accompany the tomb of John Smith - has now been dusted off and is waved about like a fanatical Zionist waving the shrouds of the victims of the Sho'ah in his enemies' faces, and generating in the process much the same sense of revulsion in the more reasoning of its observers. Scotland should not become independent, so such self-identified 'leftists' aver, because that would mean that the poor and downtrodden of Scotland would then - so it is claimed - not be able to show 'solidarity' with their fellow victims of The One True Way in England (Wales and Northern Ireland are seldom if ever mentioned in this context, by the way), and would leave those poor unfortunates located south of the Cheviots but north of Calais as prey to the perpetual right-wing hegemony which would be the blessed realm of England for evermore. How dare, rail these proponents of enforced Togetherness-whether-it-works-for-you-or-not, how very dare you think of making good your escape while you can!
(This argument is not, it should be noted, confined to the Labour Party; it is to be seen in the blogs and websites of individuals and groups on the 'Hard Left' (so called because it is hard to see what the fucking point of their existence might be, except as a front for MI5, ISIS or similarly enlightened bodies); and it is to be heard coming from the bien pensant 'liberals' who litter the columns of the 'serious' press like drunks in a Friday-night gutter, providing the same degree of enlightenment as often as not).
That the argument is twaddle should be clear enough after a few moments uninterrupted thought. If 'solidarity' is to be given as the reason why the people of Scotland should vote to continue a constitutional arrangement which is ill-suited to their needs, then should not the sansculottes of Blighty as a whole give up this terrible and divisive notion of 'The United Kingdom' and - in 'solidarity' with their comrades in Barcelona and in Bratislava, in Cairo and in Cape Town - create a World Government to bring the glorious Golden Future into being? Let Bognor call unto Bogotá! Let the cry go out from billabong to Billericay! Let the Revolution roll!
That's not what they really mean, of course. Because these heralds of the Unionist Left are far more Unionist than they ever could be considered 'Left'. They are what dear old Radio Tirana (in a slightly shifted context) used to call "social imperialists". They use their version of socialism in an attempt to disguise the fact that they are every bit as wedded to The Way Things Have Always Been Forever (Westminster Chapter) as any froth-lipped Tory backbencher or UKIP sense-mangler. Given the choice between letting go of a part of their sacred realm (thus allowing the people dwelling therein to at least attempt to create a better society) or having those people permanently subject to policies that they expressly do not want, foisted upon them by politicians and parties for whom they wouldn't vote if they were the only ones on the ballot, then this sub-species of soi-disant progressives will always choose the latter and twist the word (and noble concept) of solidarity out of all recognition in order to try to guilt-trip people of conscience into acquiesence. What they really demand - as one commenter observed - is not 'solidarity', but a suicide pact.
(There's a further sub-sub-species of the self-described 'real left' who oppose independence on the grounds that an independent Scotland would still, in their little minds, be ready prey to the evil capitalist exploiters, leading any observer to the conclusion that these are people who would be willing to not let the hungry have so much as even a crust because it wasn't the whole loaf).
Besides which, even if the dishonest appeals to 'solidarity' had any validity at all, why the hell should the people of Scotland - given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity forever to rid themselves of the crumbling zombies of Westminster - have to wear the hair-shirt for ever in order to save the people of England from the consequences of their own choices and actions? You know, the proud, upstanding English, famous for their independence of mind and spirit, who don't need anyone's help to rule their sacred land (except the US Feral Reserve, the odd wandering Muscovite and a few passing Emirs)? If they have a problem with their rulers, perhaps they should be the ones to change them (although not to metric ones of course, oh dear me, no!). How patronising of the faux gauche to suggest that the English need bailing out of their own mess, and by one of the lesser breeds of the Great Island Nation (leaving aside the inconvenient fact that the presence of Scotland's MPs in the Commons has determined the make-up of the government for only about two and a half years out of the last sixty)!
All of this psychopathy leads to even more egregious behaviour, both from within the Labour establishment and from the Blogsheviks swirling around the plughole of Unionist socialism. So it is that we have the sight of noted figures in the Labour Party in Scotland making constant comparisons not just between SNP supporters and the Nazis, but between all 'Yes' supporters and fascism. For all the feigned attacks of the vapours on the part of Unionist politicians and their kept boys in the press and broadcasting about "OMFG! Nasty Cybernats!!!!", you only have to look at pro-Union blogs and Twitter feeds to see where the real nastiness, the true viciousness is to be found. There is a Twitter feed called BritNatAbuseBot where some of the pond-life section of the Unionist camp stand revealed in all their glory (I won't link to it, it's nasty stuff; you go looking for it yourself if you really want to find out). But the abuse which comes from official and high-profile members and supporters of 'No' often differs only in its perpetrators' greater ability to spell and punctuate (although that is not a given in all cases).
(Part II - The 'No' Future - follows tomorrow) 
